Navigate:

ForeignPolicy.com gets a makeover

Text Size

-

+

reset

1

2

PreviousNext

ForeignPolicy.com has a new look, with inspiration from The Atlantic, Slate and Politico.Close

Drezner said that he was contacted by Naim and Glasser about six weeks ago, and there was some discussion about replicating The Atlantic model. Drezner said there are some benefits to no longer being solo, including a salary bump, and "institutional endorsement." And since Drezner can continue to publish live, "the only thing that changes is my URL," he said.

Another prominent blogger and professor, Mark Lynch, will bring his Middle East-focused Abu Aardvark blog to Foreign Policy, too. Lynch informed readers last week that he was making the jump along with Drezner, adding that he'd "been promised complete editorial independence."

On his own for 6½ years, Lynch wrote that he was initially reluctant but when he "heard the ideas of the team behind Foreign Policy's new site and the identities of the outstanding team they've put together, it seemed like the perfect move at the perfect time."

Most of the writers are under contract, and will be working remotely. Currently, the relatively small Foreign Policy staff works out of the headquarters of its former publisher, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but there are plans to move to the small on-hand staff to an office space of their own.

That group will be supplements by a stable of new bloggers, among them Harvard professor and Israel Lobby co-author Stephen Walt, former Clinton official David Rothkopf, and journalist Laura Rozen — whose reported blog, The Cable will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the making of foreign policy.

Senior editor Carolyn O'Hara will oversee the Madame Secretary group blog. With Hillary Rodham Clinton's appointment to the State Department, Glasser said that "foreign affairs wonks found themselves the owners of the Clinton portfolio on the Web," thus an all-Hillary, all-the-time blog.

Christian Brose, one of the few full-time hires, is making the transition from Condoleezza Rice's chief speechwriter to senior editor and will moderate Shadow Government, a group blog comprised of conservative foreign policy officials, including 9/11 Commission director Philip Zelikow, ex-senior White House aide Peter Feaver, and John McCain's foreign policy adviser, Steve Biegun.

Within The Washington Post itself, integration of print and Web cultures has been an ongoing — and to some, agonizing — process. Glasser sees an advantage in moving from the that bureaucracy to what she described as "a small, entrepreneurial environment."

"We were able to do this guerilla redesign in just five of six weeks," Glasser said. "That's really hard to do in a big place that has multiple layers of people involved and two different corporate entities."

Offering a sizable group of blogs isn't the only point of the redesign. Another goal is to act as the preeminent foreign policy portal, a destination site for readers looking for news links and the site's own insight and analysis in response to major world events, such as the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

At the Post, Glasser reported from Afghanistan and Iraq, and previously ran the Moscow bureau with her husband Peter Baker, who's now a reporter with The New York Times. But it's one of the other roles Glasser took at the Post — remaking the Outlook section — that could provide more of a model in how to synthesize various commentary and points of views on world affairs.

Readers' Comments (2)

If this portal publishes the true news it will be news BUT if they put out the American sanitized version it will become OLD NEWS quick! They need to read Der spiegel, BBC, METimes, FT, Gulfnews, MOby news, Guardian, Match...to start...The MSM sites are so much garbage and edited too boot!